Extending Shared drive in a Windows 2003 SP1 Cluster

[Sheldon Smith]

Looking through the various TechNet notes and KBs, at least for Windows 2003 *prior* to adding Service Pack 1, it is necessary to shut down all nodes but one when extending a shared drive (KB 304736).

Windows 2003 Service Pack 1 adds the ability to put an existing Physical Disk resource into what it calls Maintenance Mode (cluster res "Disk x:" /maint:on).

Does anyone know if this Win2003 SP1 Maintenance Mode can be used to safely extend a partition *WITHOUT* having to shut down all other nodes?
That is, while the application Group of which the Physical "Disk x:" resource is a part would certainly need to be down for the duration, could any other independent Group still be operational on other nodes in the cluster?

[Rune J. Winje · Accepted solution]

I've heard from people that HP OpenView Volume Growth should work in MS cluster - but this is only relevant if you have EVA storage.

Another alternative I would personally try to use before using low level and not very userfriendly tools like diskpart is clusterrecovery.exe

Short description of how to use this would be:
1) Make a completely new and big enough disk on your SAN.
2) Present it to the servers of the cluster
3) On the node that owns the group you want the bigger disk select New Resource > Physical disk
4) Let's say you now have Disk X: (original) and Disk Y: (new bigger) Take the group offline with the exception of the disks.
5) Use your favourite backup program on Disk X: and restore everything to disk Y: (robocopy ver XP010 with /copyall would also be an option)
6) You are now ready for the magic of clusterrecovery.exe Run it from an XP workstation, connect to the cluster and select to swap disk X: and Y:
7) Bring the cluster group online again.
8) When time allows, but preferrably at once - do make a move group to to the other nodes to ensure 110% they are in sync and that failover works flawlessly.
9) Remove the Y: disk from the cluster (del) and unpresent it from the SAN (keep in mind that this is the original X: disk as seen from the SAN's point of view...)

See also:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305793

The clusterrecovery method of course assumes you have enough free space on your SAN to make a new disk that is big enough for your needs.


Cheers,
Rune